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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728971">Family Ties</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWithNoDragonTatoo/pseuds/GirlWithNoDragonTatoo'>GirlWithNoDragonTatoo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Boys (Comics), The Boys (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family of Choice, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, One Shot, mention of suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:54:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728971</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlWithNoDragonTatoo/pseuds/GirlWithNoDragonTatoo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Billy comes all the way from the States back to England for one purpose only, it would be mildly put that he is more than surprised to see her there again after all these years.<br/>At the cemetery.<br/>At the foot of some very particular grave.<br/>(Story takes place after the end of the second season)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Butcher/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Family Ties</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I did it again- another Butcher One Shot - I can't seem to get this guy out of my head...despite the rather difficult topic, hopefully enjoy!<br/>A big thanks to the wonderful ConstanceTruggle for beta reading and invaluable help translating this story!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
As he walks toward the grave, he sees a single, narrow figure there from afar.<br/>
<br/>
Her fine golden-blond hair is tied in a messy knot at the back of her neck, which swings up and down jerkily with her movements.<br/>
Again and again she hits the gravestone with an old, thick stump of branches, so that it splinters, tiny to finger-long splinters of wood rush around her head.<br/>
<br/>
Involuntarily, he stops for a moment before he approaches his target again in a small arc at the side.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't hear him, doesn't see him, cries one curse after the other and he can see that with every further blow, countless splinters shoot through the air from the branch.<br/>
Hears how the wood cracks under the roaring blows, groaning, protesting.<br/>
<br/>
"You rotten swine," she utters in a hoarse voice, rough as a grater. "I hope you burn in hell for all eternity! I hope it is the same hell you sent him through! I pray that it is worse! Rot in hell! Rot in hell! Rot in hell! Rot!"<br/>
<br/>
He is sure that he did not see her with the other, few and far between funeral guests earlier.<br/>
Like him, she did not appear at his father's grave until after all the mourners had scattered, on their way to their cars to take the funeral meal in the reserved pub that his mother had invited to after the funeral.<br/>
<br/>
He recognizes her even before he can catch a glimpse of her face.<br/>
<br/>
One last time she strikes the gravestone with such force that the maltreated branch in her hand breaks in two with a loud crack in the middle.<br/>
Carelessly, she lets the broken, roughly jagged stump fall to the ground, clenches her fists and then kicks the stone with her particularly clunky right boot before throwing her head back and spitting on his grave.<br/>
<br/>
"Lizzy," he says.<br/>
<br/>
With a jerk, she turns her head towards him, mild horror in her features that someone has caught her in a morally reprehensible grave desecration, until, after a few endless seconds, the change in her eyes tells him that she has recognized him.<br/>
<br/>
"William."<br/>
<br/>
Two syllables of clearly audible pain that might, probably wouldn't have left him untouched during Becca's lifetime.<br/>
But not anymore.<br/>
<br/>
Not anymore.<br/>
<br/>
"I see you show the old man the respect he deserves." His voice is just as hard as the rock under which his fucking father finally, finally lies.<br/>
<br/>
She snorts, wiping snot off her nose with the back of her hand.<br/>
"I wouldn't have dreamed of meeting you here... of all places. I..." she falters, shakes her head apologetically. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to be offensive, I-"<br/>
<br/>
"Please spare us that," he interrupts her calmly. "We both know that you meant every word exactly the way you said it, and you were fucking right. But now if you'll excuse me, please," he points with his chin to the gravestone, "I have to take a piss.”<br/>
With these words he opens his coat with calm movements and reaches for his belt, but does not open it yet.<br/>
<br/>
Again it takes a few seconds until she understands.<br/>
She pushes a tangled, loose strand of hair behind her ear.<br/>
"Uh - yes - yes, of course, Billy." She nods absent-mindedly. "Okay. I'd better leave you to it, then." When she has almost passed him, she suddenly stops, turns her face to him again. "My sincere condolences, by the way, that the bastard just kicked the bucket now and didn't die a whole lot sooner than he deserved, after all he did to you, your mom and -" she swallows hard before she continues, "and Lenny.”<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he says calmly. "You can’t have it all, right?"<br/>
<br/>
In fact, you couldn't seem to have anything at all, not a bloody thing - neither your own life, your recently screwed up career, now uncertain, or your wife.<br/>
The thought of Becca, as always, runs through his chest like a sting.<br/>
He had lost her twice in the last eight years.<br/>
And the last time for good.<br/>
<br/>
"By the way, I belong to the club now, too", he hears himself say, "before you ask me.”<br/>
<br/>
Once again she pauses, turns to him again, real confusion on her face. "Ask? About what club?"<br/>
<br/>
"The club for widowed couples, my lovely sister-in-law."<br/>
<br/>
Was she still his sister-in-law, technically speaking, even though Lenny had shot himself years ago?<br/>
He has no idea, but he doesn't give a shit about the answer.<br/>
He always liked Lizzy.<br/>
She had been good for Lenny.<br/>
At least for a while.<br/>
Until he stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger himself</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><br/>
Billy had almost been too much of a coward to attend his funeral, back then.<br/>
All the way from the States back to England he wanted to throw up in the jet when he thought about the reason why he was sitting crammed into the crappy economy class of a third class budget airline.<br/>
Only Becca had been the reason to somehow get through the whole thing, Becca, who had held his hand under the armrest for eight hours straight.<br/>
Secretly, but firmly.<br/>
From the take-off from JFK to the goddamn, late night landing in London.<br/>
<br/>
They had checked into whatever hotel two days before the funeral service; Billly didn't want to and couldn't stay with his mother for the duration of their bloody stay, as she was still living under the same roof as his hated begetter.<br/>
After all he had done to all of them, she was still together with this old dirty cunt.<br/>
Countless times hell and back he had sent them, in a sadistically good mood.<br/>
<br/>
It should have been the dirty pig of a father, the thought shot repeatedly through Billy’s head, high up where the air was too thin to breathe.<br/>
It should have been him, he should to be laid to his so-called last rest in this fucking coffin, and not his younger, little brother.<br/>
He should have died with a bullet in his head, bitten the dust.<br/>
If there really is any fucking justice in this shitty life anywhere.<br/>
But life was anything but fair.<br/>
That's why Billy had decided at a young age not to be either.<br/>
<br/>
They had met in a pub the day after they landed.<br/>
<br/>
Directly from London airport Billy had made it clear to his mother via a short phone call that he would not put a single fucking step into the house where he and Lenny had had their lives made hell by their begetter.<br/>
With whom she still lived there.<br/>
<br/>
"He won't come down," she had promised him desperately over the bad line. "He'll stay upstairs in the bedroom all day if he knows you're coming and I ask him to. Please, Billy. Come home."<br/>
<br/>
<em>Yeah</em><em>, </em><em>right</em>, he almost snorted contemptuously.<br/>
<em>As if a single one of your pleas had ever helped even a tiny bit of shit,</em> Billy was about to bark back into his mobile.<br/>
<em>As if he had ever let your words, cries and pleas stop him from putting us all through the meat grinder at will.</em><br/>
<br/>
"That's my final word, Mom," he had replied bitingly calmly. "Take it or leave it. Either you meet us alone tomorrow in some bloody cafe or pub of your choice, or we don't see each other until the funeral the day after tomorrow. Your decision."<br/>
<br/>
And with these words he had hung up, only shaking his head silently when Becca looked at him questioningly. And she had understood, not asked at that moment.<br/>
<br/>
Not half a minute later his cell phone had rung.<br/>
"Okay, Billy. Meet me in a pub."<br/>
<br/>
"Alone," he warned his mother. "Or you can watch me personally beat the old man to his own grave and long overdue death."<br/>
<br/>
"Billy!" she gasped in horror. "Please stop making the situation worse than it already is." He heard the tears in her voice, not a second later a badly suppressed sob. "I have lost my boy, my little boy! I need my other son by my side now to get through this. Please, William."<br/>
<br/>
That she addressed him by his legally correct, whole first name made him refrain from any further biting comments.<br/>
Instead, he held the cell phone away from his ear for a moment, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.<br/>
She only called him that if it was bitterly serious.<br/>
She was about to have a fucking nervous breakdown or heart attack.<br/>
<br/>
"William?"<br/>
<br/>
He reached for his nose with thumb and index finger, briefly massaging the root of his nose.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be there. Send me the address and the time on my mobile. I will be there."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
He did not sleep that night.<br/>
He couldn't close his eyes for a second, again and again he saw in the dark depths of his mind's eye how Lenny stuck that damn gun in his mouth, and how the back of his head exploded in bloody bone splinters just a blink of an eye later.<br/>
He just wouldn't stop.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>It did not stop.<br/>
<br/>
He tried to imagine how it was his father's head instead, bursting into blood and brain matter.<br/>
After he, Billy, personally pulled the trigger.<br/>
It should have been a damn satisfying picture, but it wasn't.<br/>
Because again and again Lenny's face slid in front of his inner eye, it was Lenny's skull that splattered apart.<br/>
<br/>
"Can't sleep?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Becca's voice sounded raw and drowsy, and he cursed himself for waking her with his restless tossing and turning so late at night.<br/>
"Yes," he said, reaching for her hand, gently squeezing it when he found it. "Go back to sleep, darling."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want to talk about it?" She propped her head on her elbow, he could feel her looking into his face. Through the thin curtains, not quite drawn together, cold lantern light fell into her small room, onto her bed, letting him guess her slim silhouette next to him.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
It was the absolute truth.<br/>
Because words didn't help shit, because nothing helped shit.<br/>
Nothing would ever bring him back to life.<br/>
<br/>
"Go back to sleep." He gently slipped from her grasp, pushed the blanket aside and sat his bare feet on the floor. "I have to go to the bathroom anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay." Her voice sounded doubtful, skeptical.<br/>
<br/>
"Could take longer," he said in a subdued voice. "I guess I couldn't take the food on board. And the fucking jet lag to boot. Go back to sleep, honey."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
When they headed for the pub the next day in the early afternoon, he had a bad feeling in his stomach.<br/>
Again and again he had looked around stealthily to not alarm Becca unnecessarily, but fortunately he hadn't been able to discover his hated father anywhere so far.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe Billy's mother had warned Sam Butcher not to get in the way of his now only son.<br/>
Or maybe she just kept her mouth shut and didn't tell her husband where she would go today.<br/>
Or maybe the earth was flat after all.<br/>
<br/>
Connie Butcher had never harmed a fly, let alone her two sons, but the fear of her faithful spouse was a dangerous tool in the hands of that very same one.<br/>
Once the old man had tasted the blood and smelled the fuse, Billy thought him capable of beating everything he wanted to know out of his mother bit by bit.<br/>
Still, even at his advanced age.<br/>
Although Connie had told him that Sam hadn't really laid a hand on her for years - whatever the hell that meant, not really - Billy didn't trust his so-called father as far as he could jerk off.<br/>
<br/>
Countless times the dirty bastard had dragged his wife out of bed in a drunken stupor in the middle of the night when he finally came home from his fucking booze-ups and beat her all across the apartment.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Lenny had stood very quietly behind him while Billy watched through a tiny gap in the kids' room door as her father beat her mother to a pulp.<br/>
Every time he was about to open the door and jump on </em><em>their</em><em> dad with a roar, Lenny grabbed him by the sleeve, held him back with all his might and shook his head silently.<br/>
"You can't go out there," he said seriously and in a trembling voice, his dark eyes saucer plates big. "She has forbidden us to go out there. Mommy said we are not allowed to go out of the room again until Da-Daddy is gone o-o-or sleeping. We are not allowed!"<br/>
</em><br/>
Lenny was only five years old, Billy was eight.<br/>
He still remembered that night well.<br/>
<br/>
The last time Billy had actually thrown himself on his father and Lenny wanted to help him drag this sick pig away from her mother, his brother had ended up in hospital the next day with a broken arm.<br/>
Fell down the stairs, of course.<br/>
The fact that "the accident" had happened on the first floor didn't mean fuck to the doctors.<br/>
Just as little that her mom looked like she'd been run over.<br/>
Back home, Connie had cried, told them how much she loved them and that they were not allowed to leave their room at night, no matter what.<br/>
Not even during the day, when Daddy fought with Mommy.<br/>
Fighting with Mommy.<br/>
So that's what she called it when he was beating the crap out of her for some trivialities.<br/>
Even then, Billy couldn't count on both hands how many times his father had beaten her black and blue.<br/>
Or beat him and Lenny up, too, mainly for educational reasons, as her dad used to say.<br/>
Not counting the beatings before he entered elementary school.<br/>
<br/>
And that was fucking times too many.<br/>
<br/>
<em>"We want to help you, Mommy." Lenny's voice was calm and serious and clear, the next day with his freshly plastered arm, despite the painkillers they had pumped into him, and her mother smiled so sadly that it cut Billy's heart unbearably sharp.<br/>
"This is the best way to help me, little one."</em></p>
<p>
  <em>"But Mom-"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"No buts Billy! You're not coming out of your room until your dad has calmed down and is out of the house or moved into the bedroom, that's for sure!” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not that Connie didn't try to continue to be the sole sandbag for her husband to keep him away from her sons when she feared for their lives.</p>
<p>In fact, once things got so bad when she went between Billy and their father that she almost paid for it with her eyesight.</p>
<p>That was the night Billy wanted to kill his father.</p>
<p>But Lenny, by now a silent, steadfast beacon of reason, had stopped him.</p>
<p>When Billy saw his mother's face the next day, watching her painfully bent, limping and the tiny slit around dark purple, grotesquely swollen flesh where her eye should have been, Billy realized at an instant that he had to get stronger.</p>
<p>Much stronger.</p>
<p>Physically and mentally.</p>
<p>Until then, he had sworn to himself, never again should a single cry of pain come over his lips, as soon as his father once again wanted to teach him his educational methods with the belt.</p>
<p>His mom was never again to be tempted by the cries of her sons to desperately try to keep her husband away from their children.</p>
<p>Because that only made things worse.</p>
<p>He would probably beat her to death next time.</p>
<p>Billy was really, deeply, insanely scared to death for their mom.</p>
<p>He had also - as much as possible for almost ten year old - gently brought this up to his brother.</p>
<p>And Lenny had understood.</p>
<p>He had tried as bravely as he could to pull himself together when the education clock struck again at beating time for them, that Billy’ eyes almost watered over, so proud was he of his little, much too young brother.</p>
<p>Who endured the beatings with the belt as silently as possible, while tears ran down his cheeks and trembling chin in torrents.</p>
<p>As for Billy, he had learned to successfully bite down and push back his own tears with iron will and burning hatred, even those that the pain involuntarily drove into his eyes.</p>
<p>But when their father noticed this new fact in a somewhat sober state, he became more and more brutal in his methods, more and more creative.</p>
<p>Belt, cane, broom handle, new: power cable, vacuum cleaner pipe, an ancient cricket bat.</p>
<p>Of course, a child could not stand this torture for long.</p>
<p>And when it became too much at some point, Lenny screamed in pain again, but every time he hit his hand in front of his mouth, if he was still able to do so.</p>
<p>And Billy's hatred for his father grew, shot into immeasurable dimensions.</p>
<p>Now, beatings were no longer only for educational purposes, but more and more often they were given on the house, for free.</p>
<p>Just like that.</p>
<p>Sam Butcher didn't need even the slightest cause for it.</p>
<p>Just existing and accidentally crossing his field of vision was enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy felt his hands involuntarily clenching into fists, cracking his ankles. Becca's worried look on his face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Shall we leave, Billy?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His eyes met his wife's, and he just shook his head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He guessed he just owed Lenny that one.</p>
<p>At least that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Taking a deep breath, Billy reached out and opened the fucking pub door.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Little </em><em>Pub</em> was the name of the place, and it lived up to its insanely creative, stupid name.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing was as small and crowded as it could be in the best shitty English weather and teatime.</p>
<p>Inside there was thick air for cutting, because you were still allowed to smoke here.</p>
<p>Thanks fuck for that, Billy thought with a side glance at Becca, who had finally gotten rid of the fags.</p>
<p>But his wife did not complain with a word, and immediately started looking for her mother-in-law.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy was also looking around for the second time when an older, somewhat corpulent woman even stood relatively far forward at a small table in the corner, halfway up from her chair, and beckoned them to her with a nervous movement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She looked decades older since he had last seen her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her hair had turned heavily gray under her bleached roots, and new wrinkles of sorrow and suffering had carved into her face.</p>
<p>Her eyes were bloodshot, and such dark edges lay beneath them that they looked blue-black on the paper-thin, pale skin.</p>
<p>Just like the blooming souvenirs of various violets of countless beatings of her loving and faithful husband.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Mom," he said quietly in a much too rough voice as they made the short walk to their round table.</p>
<p>Suddenly she burst into a sob, but immediately buried her face stealthily on his chest to suppress it and then started to cry anyway, as usual but almost alarmingly silently in public.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What else would the fucking people think?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a moment he was frozen, then his arms were raised as if by magic and mechanically wrapped around her bent back, which was still noticeably bent even when standing.</p>
<p>A dangerously bubbling mix of suppressed feelings was trying to rise up inside him, to the surface, and for a moment Billy had serious problems to really get a grip on them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Powerless rage, bottomless grief, blood-red fury.</p>
<p>And unbridled hatred.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hate for himself that he obviously wasn't fucking around for Lenny in his darkest hours, that he went to America with all his bags and baggage and left everything behind in England.</p>
<p>And the well-known, all-consuming hatred for the dirty pig of his, their common father, who had managed to put Lenny in his grave after half a life as a whipping boy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy." Becca touched him gently on the arm and her muffled voice sounded strange, suppressed alarmed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He half freed himself from his mother's clutches, turned around and his world immediately turned red.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Screaming red.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not a few steps away from the entrance he stood, his old, sunken face twisted into a contemptuous, sneering grimace.</p>
<p>He must have followed his mother secretly, probably hiding until just now behind the fucking newspaper, which he now held rolled up in his right hand.</p>
<p>Despite his advanced age, he still seemed brawny and latently threatening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The monster still threw his shadows ahead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Your mother never told me you were back in good old England. Must have slipped her mind somehow." For a moment, his abysmal, threatening gaze wandered to his wife, who fearfully took a half step back before he suddenly looked Billy in the face again.</p>
<p>"I didn't think you actually had the balls to show up here in person. I suppose I owe this honor exclusively to your wife -"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He did not get any further.</p>
<p>Billy had stormed towards him with two or three long steps, had reached out with his arm and had punched him in the face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Becca's shrill voice was the only one that got through to him in the hullabaloo that followed his fist slap - a few guests startled off their chairs or flinched violently on their bar stools, dishes rattled loudly and smashed to the floor deafeningly, two waitresses came running towards him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy!"</p>
<p>He felt an iron grip on his arm, with which he was about to swing a second time, long, narrow fingers that were boring steel into his flesh.</p>
<p>Each time anew he was surprised by the physical strength that lay hidden in his wife, only rarely revealed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the pup broads just helped his father up, who was bleeding from his nose like the pig he was, and Billly hoped fervently that he had broken it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clumsy, the old man wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and gasped like a lung patient with terminal cancer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You dirty bastard!" His father had picked himself up again, trembling all over his body with half suppressed, half erupting rage. "As a little shit, I haven't told you often enough who's in charge of the Butcher family, I see!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'll show you again who's in charge, you son of a bitch."</p>
<p>He himself sounded quite calm, as Billy remarked in amazement, his voice didn't tremble like everything else under his skin, which felt tense to tear at his muscles, his bones.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Sir!" The other staff member raised her hand and spoke to him calmly, while her colleague was still taking care of Sam. "This is the last time I ask you to leave our pub, otherwise I will and must call the police, I'm sorry!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"William, for God's sake, please! Stop it!"</p>
<p>His mother's voice made him whirl around abruptly, and he felt his own monster inside him - just eons ago licked blood again - trying to jump again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Did you know he was coming?"</p>
<p>The flaring fear in her eyes, when she looked too briefly at her husband, told him everything he needed to know.</p>
<p>So she was still afraid of him.</p>
<p>Mortal fear.</p>
<p>"God damn it, Mom." He turned back to his father, looked him straight in the eye. "So you've been sneaking up on her like a fucking sticky wicket. This is fucking rich. But I swear, if you don’t piss off here right now, I-."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Hey, mister!" A waiter came to the aid of his female colleagues at that moment, pulled out his cell phone like a gun and stood between Billy and his father.</p>
<p>"If you don't calm down right now and leave our store of your own free will, I'll be forced to call the cops and have you charged with assault on one of our guests, threat of violence and trespassing and pick you up, and I'll do it now!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy mustered the guy unmoved and then spoke with cold contempt: "He just stood at the entrance and didn't even take off his fucking jacket, let alone order a beer, you dumb bastard."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"And another libel suit, asshole!" Within seconds, the guy had a red light on his neck instead of a head and his free hand clenched into a fist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Come on." Becca's grip became even tighter, so hard that he could see from the corners of his eyes how her ankles turned white. "We're going."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She dragged him with her, and Billy reluctantly let it happen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His wife turned her head back once more when she already had her hand on the handle. "I'm sorry, Connie."</p>
<p>Her eyes fell on his father, and she said no more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Outside, it had stopped raining, and through a tiny crack in the lead-gray cloud cover, a pale streak of faint sunlight fell.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“William!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy," Becca hissed as irritated as pleading in his ear. "Don't turn around, leave him there, come on, just leave him there please, come on."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He couldn't.</p>
<p>Billy couldn't because he couldn't.</p>
<p>Because he didn't want to.</p>
<p>Because everything inside of him was screaming to beat his father to death right here, right now, in the open street.</p>
<p>As dead as Lenny was with a bullet in his head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy stopped, turned around like in slow motion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"The day when I let you get away with after you punched me and threatened me on top of is far from coming, my boy." His father's voice had taken on a dangerously casual tone. "And it is certainly not today."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam Butcher approached with a threat, and Billy stood up to Becca involuntarily, protecting her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You come one step closer and I'm gonna ram you in the ground right here and now, you son of a bitch."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Sam!", Becca immediately stepped frantically out from behind Billy, but this time for a change it was he who grabbed her by the arm and held her tight.</p>
<p>"Please, Billy." Begging, she looked him in the face, and after a second of hesitation, he reluctantly let go.</p>
<p>"Please, Sam," she turned to his father again. "Just leave us alone and go now, we - we're all in a terrible, horrible, exceptional situation of grief right now, especially you and Connie and Billy and -"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm not going to let you kick me out of a bloody pub, my boy," the man in question rudely cuts her off, his eyes fixed exclusively on Billy. "It's a free country and I can still do what I want, go and stand where I damn well please."</p>
<p>Slowly his father came closer, stopped only an arm's length away in front of Billy, who automatically moved back in front of Becca.</p>
<p>"And if I want to follow your mother because she suddenly leaves the house, then I will. And if I slap her because she hasn't told me anything about you, then she'll catch one, and no one can stop me, especially not a little, dirty, pretentious bastard like you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy's entire field of vision was tunnel-like reduced to just this one point, the face of his hated father; everything else sank into the deepest darkness.</p>
<p>The noise - level of the open road next to the sidewalk of passing cars, passers-by rushing by, and the splashing of rain in the sewer was abruptly muffled, as if submerged under black water.</p>
<p>Drowned in the rush of blood in his ears.</p>
<p>The pounding of his heart racing with rage in his head, his temples.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"So you're not just an old, rotten, stalking cunt," Billy nodded slowly, "but still a brutal one.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Please, Billy" Rebecca pulled his arm again, with even more force than before at <em>Little's</em>, pleading. "Let's go before this escalates, please, come on, let's go!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"William!"</p>
<p>The sudden voice of his distraught mother made Billy jerkily raise his gaze, blinking irritated.</p>
<p>Trembling, she stood on the sidewalk in front of the little pub, her hands wringing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Please, calm down, I beg you, don't make us a scene anymore, not here, not now, not with Lenny dead and-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Fucking right, Mom!," Billy interrupted her cutting and his eyes immediately shot back to his father's face. "Damn good cue. Lenny is dead. He's dead," he stretched out his index finger threateningly at his counterpart, "and that's your fault, you lousy cunt. You might as well have shot him yourself."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"That's it," replied his so-called father with seething anger in his voice. "You keep talking like that to your old man. You'll see where it gets you in a minute."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy almost laughed bitterly, if the grief for Lenny would not threaten to crush his heart in its iron grip since the news of his death.</p>
<p>"Is that a threat, Dad?"</p>
<p>He spat out that last word with as much contempt as he could muster.</p>
<p>And that was a hell of a lot.</p>
<p>"That hasn't worked for me in thirty years. You should have known that by now, unless the well-deserved senile dementia pierces your brain. Cunt."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm warning you, boy. Don't push it."</p>
<p>His begetter took one last step forward and then stood right in front of him, clenching his fist in a threatening manner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy felt - as he had for ages - no more fear, neither the old familiar, bone-marrow-deep dread that he had felt of this person as a youth, nor the mortal terror that he had experienced as an infant since he could think and feel - only pure white hatred that grounded him.</p>
<p>Billy stood on a foundation that he himself had worked hard to build, and he could not fall any deeper.</p>
<p>Never again, he thought back then, before life would teach him a cruel lesson years later.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He bent his head down a little, brought his face so close to that of his father that the tips of their noses almost touched, and Billy could smell the perpetual consumption of alcohol from every single fucking pore of his lousy skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Fuck you," he said. “Cunt.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sam Butcher looked as if he had been doused in ice water for a blink of an eye, before a strange glint came into his eyes, a terrifying, almost appreciative expression flickering across his old, wrinkled features.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then that moment was over, and he pounced on Billy with a hoarse scream.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Immediately, his mother jumped after him, was with her husband in one leap and tried to hold him from behind, while Becca, in turn, simultaneously tried to pull Billy away from his father.</p>
<p>"Billy," she cried out at the same moment Connie was desperately trying to talk to Sam, "please, leave him alone! Stop it, stop it! You, you're both absolutely not yourself right now, you-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I've seldom been myself so much as I am right now, Rebecca!"</p>
<p>The fact that he called her by her full name made her freeze for a moment.</p>
<p>"Let go of me, so that this fucking cunt can finally get what he' s deserved for decades!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Absurdly enough, his wife actually let go of him abruptly, and even more bizarrely, this circumstance suddenly made him pause for a few endless seconds as if by magic.</p>
<p>It almost felt as if Becca no longer had his back, both literally and symbolically.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As if his hatred, which was directed solely at his creator, had also hit her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Sam!" His mother cried loudly, still struggling to calm her husband. "Please leave the boy alone, Sam, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry I didn't-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jerkily Billy went between his struggling parents, grabbed Connie by the arm and pulled her away, cut off her word harshly:</p>
<p>"Don't you dare apologize to that bastard for anything, Mom! There's only one person here who should apologize to you, to me, to Lenny, <em>for all eternity</em>!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His father wanted to start talking, but then suddenly bent over as if in pain and suffered a violent coughing fit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm sorry, William." Tears ran down his mother's cheeks openly and she made no more attempts to wipe them away as usual. "It's probably best that you leave now, Rebecca is right. Go back to your hotel. I'll see you tomorrow."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She slipped from his grasp and immediately turned back to her husband.</p>
<p>Worried, she bent down to him, spoke in a calmly manner, tapped him gently, softly on his back.</p>
<p>The bastard, who had threatened to give her a few more afternoon beatings for tea later.</p>
<p>Helped him back up slowly and carefully.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Involuntarily, Billy shook his head, just couldn't believe it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Come." Becca grabbed his arm again, pulled him off the sidewalk, and this time he let it happen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"We'll see you again tomorrow for the funeral, my boy" his father pushed out in a rough voice, almost standing upright again, "if you really have the balls to show up there, after the stunt you just pu -"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With a jerk Billy drove around one last time, stopped himself and Becca abruptly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"If you dare," he said dangerously quietly, and this time his voice quivered slightly, "if you so much as come near the goddamn cemetery, I will beat you to a pulp. I'll smash your fucking brains out and piss in your skull!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Becca?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lizzy's voice abruptly pulls him back into the present, to the grave of his biological producer in the same cemetery where Lenny was buried.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her face has turned pale as a corpse within seconds, and tears actually enter her eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>The last thing he needs right now are crying females.</p>
<p>After all, today is a day to celebrate.</p>
<p>His fucking father finally kicked the bucket, died a deserved death, miserably dying of lung cancer in the end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Becca?", she says repeatedly and falters briefly, he sees her swallow. "Oh, God, Billy, I didn't know that. My God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. How-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"It was an accident," he interrupts his sister-in-law, suddenly cold and hard, raises his hand dismissively. "Don't ask."</p>
<p>
  <em>An accident.</em>
</p>
<p>The fucking understatement of the millennium.</p>
<p>But he could hardly say that her own son - the result of getting raped by the world's most famous and greatest fucking superhero ever - had accidentally almost sizzled his own mother's head off her neck with his fucking laser beams.</p>
<p>That she left Billy miserably dead under his hands while he tried completely senselessly to stop the bleeding at her carotid artery.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That would possibly put him in need of an explanation, and he had absolutely no desire to explain any of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He finally wanted to piss on his father's grave and then go celebrate in peace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"She is dead, and that says it all," Billy feels compelled to add when he sees that Lizzy wants to open her mouth once more despite his cold plea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She shakes her head helplessly, seems almost as fucking lost as she did at Lenny's funeral.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm really terribly sorry," she finally whispers again and wipes the new tears from her cheeks. "I didn't know anything about this."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Then how’d you know about this?" Busily he points with his chin at the grave he is standing in front of.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Your mother," she says succinctly. "I told her at Lenny's funeral service as a farewell, that I never wanted to see her again, that she should never contact me again until his - your father died. She kept to it, and until a few days ago we had no contact at all. And-" she gulps briefly - "I never asked her about you, to be honest."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The latter is not surprising to Billy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He had behaved like a scorched pig towards her after the death of his brother, indirectly blamed her for Lenny's death, since his father as the sole scapegoat was simply no longer enough for him, back then.</p>
<p>The old rotten cunt had actually stayed away from his younger son's funeral, so Billy had devoted himself to the next in line.</p>
<p>Becca had sharply rebuked Billy, grabbed him by the arm and apologized for her husband to the entire round, was about to grab her purse and coats and leave with him immediately.</p>
<p>Outside in front of the pub, he only calmed down slowly.</p>
<p>It was only after they had run a round that his head had become clearer.</p>
<p>Billy knew again who had really put Lenny six feet under.</p>
<p>But when they came back, Elisabeth had already disappeared.</p>
<p>He had never apologized to her personally.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Time to make up for that now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But before Billy can even open his mouth now, Lizzy suddenly stands in front of him and puts both arms around his upper body.</p>
<p>He feels her trembling and lets it happen that she presses him even tighter against her narrow, delicate own.</p>
<p>She seems even more emaciated than he had remembered her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I am so sorry, William. God, I'm so incredibly sorry. No one should have to go through this. No one should have to lose their partner... so cruelly before time. No one."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Liz," Billy replies calmly in a husky voice. "I never apologized to you for what a stupid asshole I was to you after Lenny's funeral."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Only since he had found Becca again almost half a year ago - just to lose her forever shortly afterwards - and she had openly confessed to him her fear of telling him about her rape, Billy had realized.</p>
<p>Much too late and agonizingly slow, still infinitely dim-witted, but finally understood.</p>
<p>Understood what it means to have failed miserably with your partner despite the worst best intentions.</p>
<p>To have let down the one person in your life who meant everything, really fucking everything, to you.</p>
<p>He would have slaughtered the whole world just to get revenge for Becca.</p>
<p>A circumstance she had known about and something she said she never would have wanted.</p>
<p>And had driven her right into Vought's arms.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy had failed utterly and completely.</p>
<p>As a best friend, husband and the love of her life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>How can he stand there and still blame Lizzy for Lenny's death?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His brother had never announced his suicide.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He had basically left Lizzy more or less exactly just as Becca had left him over eight years ago.</p>
<p>Only with the difference that his sister-in-law had never had the chance to talk to her husband at least to some extent one last time.</p>
<p>In return, Billy had had to go through the torture of losing Becca twice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm sorry," he says softly on Lizzy's blond hair, clears his throat and raises his head again. "Fucking sorry."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Okay," she replies calmly, nods at the bend of his neck and he feels her tears on his skin. "Okay. I- I've known for a long time that you weren't yourself back then, Billy. Thanks anyway."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She takes a step back, wipes the back of her hand energetically across her face, then looks up at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Shit, Billy," it bursts out of her and new tears shoot out of her eyes once again. "Actually I wanted to slap you in the face if we ever met again. But, hell, you caught me dead to rights here earlier, even though I should have known you'd come all the way from the States to England just so you could piss on his grave.”</p>
<p>She laughs, and her laughter immediately turns into a sob.</p>
<p>"And then I see you here and you, you really do have almost the same eyes, Billy."</p>
<p>She shakes her head, bites her lips. "You really do have his bloody eyes, Billy. Lenny's eyes. Otherwise you really look zero alike, but I look at your face and it's like a wound that suddenly opens up again, one that never quite heals and that always swells under the bloody surface, and it hurts so much. So terribly much."</p>
<p>She closes her eyelids for a short moment, under which tears still shoot down her cheeks, anyway, looks him in the eyes again after a few endless seconds.</p>
<p>"Fuck, William, I miss him so much."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He does not know what to say.</p>
<p>So he keeps his mouth shut.</p>
<p>Also because he knows that words don't help shit.</p>
<p>Knows from bitter experience.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I still miss him so much, every single fucking day," she says and reveals her pain to him unasked and criminally trusting. "I am really infinitely sorry that you, too, now have to go through exactly the same thing as I did.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>You have no idea</em>, Billy wants to reply harshly, but suddenly doesn't say a word.</p>
<p>How would she know what he's really fucking going through?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once again she grabs his arms, this time with a jerk and he thinks he can feel the icy cold of her bone-white fingers still under his coat on his skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You know how many times I've blamed myself for Lenny?"</p>
<p>Her voice now trembles, as does her lower lip, but she isn’t waiting for any answer from him.</p>
<p>"I mean, shit, I was his wife! The only person he supposedly trusted! At least that was in his fucking suicide note they found on him!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A small, sharp fang shoots through his heart, scarred beyond recognition.</p>
<p>Rips old wounds open again and newer ones.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"And yet I never saw this coming, Billy! I just didn't see it coming, it was a fucking day like any other, I went to work in the morning, we had a normal breakfast, kissed goodbye, and Lenny said 'see you tonight, honey'."</p>
<p>Her flood of words never stops, it's as if a dam has burst inside her and Billy is the only thing firm and solid in her path of painful revelation.</p>
<p>The only fucking rock in the violent surf of her own unleashed self-mortification.</p>
<p>"And then, then I come home in the evening after a really shitty day, and find Lenny nowhere in the apartment. Really nowhere!"</p>
<p>Her fingers claw painfully under the fabric of his coat into his flesh.</p>
<p>Her trembling becomes as bad as a junkie on Turkey and her pupils are huge, seeming to get bigger and bigger until they are nothing but black, all-consuming holes.</p>
<p>"So I go back out in front of the house, look for him everywhere and then find him in the garage. I find him in the fucking garage, and he blew his brains out. Blood and brain matter everywhere as far as I can see."</p>
<p>Billy wants to raise his hand, suddenly shut her up in a familiar, comforting touch of violence, but he can't.</p>
<p>He is condemned to listen to her; he has been avoiding this for far too long.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was not there for Lenny.</p>
<p>He was not fucking there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So now he must be for Liz, his accomplice in the crime of having failed miserably the most important person in both their lives.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I screamed my head off, Billy, I puked all over the place." Frenetically she now shakes her head, it slowly but surely drives him dangerously insane.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Stop it</em>, if he wants to yap at her.</p>
<p>
  <em>Shut up!</em>
</p>
<p>But he remains mute.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I yelled into my cell phone that they have to send an ambulance immediately, the emergency doctor, an emergency, a medical emergency, it's a matter of life and death, and Lenny was already irrevocably dead! Irretrievably!"</p>
<p>Her face twists and turns into a grimace of unbearable pain, but his eyes are glued to hers.</p>
<p>He cannot take his eyes off her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He owes that to them.</p>
<p>Lenny, Lizzy.</p>
<p>Becca.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I dropped the phone," she sobs, "fell back to him and tried to reanimate him with a fucking heart massage, but all the blood and brain matter had dried up long ago. And less than ten minutes later the ambulance was there. Not ten minutes later, Billy! But he was dead!"</p>
<p>His head is now roaring threateningly from the emptiness that Lizzy's words have dragged out of the depths of his consciousness, threatening to crack his skull.</p>
<p>To burst his head like a fired pistol bullet.</p>
<p>"They dragged me away from him, called the police," she continues frantically, as if the world was going to end in two minutes and she still had to quickly get absolution.</p>
<p>From him of all people, the fucking innocent lamb in person.</p>
<p>"And they find the fucking letter with him," she snorts. "First they didn't want to give it to me, my name was on it, I shouted at them, yelled at them, cried and begged and begged, and then I was finally allowed to read it with trembling hands in their presence, before the emergency doctor gave me a sedative. And only then did I learn what was really going on at home, what your fucking father did to all of you in your childhood!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He feels strangely naked, exposed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"And I hated him! Immediately and irrevocably started hating him, Billy! I hate your father to this day, even now that he's buried under the fucking dirt!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>That makes three things they had in common.</p>
<p>No, four.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Their shared hate for his father.</p>
<p>Their unwavering love for Lenny.</p>
<p>The never-ending, painful loss of the most loved person in their lives.</p>
<p>And their own bitter failure towards this one particular person.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"That makes two of us," Billy finally says calmly, because he doesn't know what else to say.</p>
<p>Lenny is no more, Becca just as little, and with one blow he realizes that he could now share his own unrestrained hatred of his begetter with another person besides his mother - purely theoretically.</p>
<p>An unsolicited, strangely comforting thought.</p>
<p>Lizzy snorts again, lowers her eyes and nods as she wipes snot off her nose with her jacket sleeve.</p>
<p>"Yes," she brings out a bitter laugh. "After all these years, the only thing that still connects us. A pretty pathetic record, eh?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You turned your back on all of us after Lenny's death," he continues calmly, although something is dangerously seething inside him. "Remember?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Says the man who emigrated to another continent with all his bag and baggage for ages before his little brother committed suicide.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hypocrisy Deluxe.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lizzy raises her gaze, looks him straight in the eye.</p>
<p>"Shit, Billy." Visibly helpless, she shakes her head. "I'm sorry. What I actually meant was - forget it. Honestly, I'm sorry." She tautens her shoulders noticeably. "I'd better go now and leave you here alone. After all, you have unfinished business here."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Yup." Demonstratively he grabs his belt again, waits.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Okay, Billy." She nods, passes him again. "Goodbye. And please say hi to Connie for me, if you see her while you're still in England."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Will do."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Goodbye, Billy." With those words, Lizzy finally turns on her heels and leaves.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He waits until she has disappeared behind a bend in the road.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The pressure on his bladder is suddenly enormous.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>As he comes a few minutes later to the exit, he sees Lizzy lurking outside the wrought-iron gate and just about to throw a burnt butt to the ground.</p>
<p>She pushes her hair and turns to him after his footsteps have apparently announced him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Billy, listen, I'm sorry to bother you again," she says in a rough voice and shakes her head. "But I wanted to apologize to you again for the way I behaved just now at your father's grave. For everything."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He waves it off, moderately puzzled that she still hadn’t pissed off.</p>
<p>Apparently she still belonged to the kind of person who was not easily deterred by his charming vein.</p>
<p>Just as remarkable as enervating.</p>
<p>"It's all right, Liz. Don't shit yourself."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"No, honestly." Her dark blue eyes still seem a tick too big for him.</p>
<p>"I know I shouldn't have been so shameless and reckless as to pour my heart out to you earlier. Just like I shouldn't have abandoned Connie in the worst phase of her life. After all, she lost Lenny too.”</p>
<p>For a moment her gaze goes into emptiness and once more she seems so painfully lost that it scratches his nerves.</p>
<p>"But I was just so...so incredibly angry," Liz continues, looking him in the face again, "so full of hate and pain at the time and didn't know what to do with it in this fucked up world...but neither you nor Connie were ever to blame for Sam's disgusting, despicable behavior, and yet I mainly punished your mother and you indirectly for it - for Lenny's death. But when I saw you at the grave earlier, I suddenly realized how pointless this mean-spirited behavior of mine was. How empty it left me behind. And how lonely."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy doesn't say a word, swallows because his throat suddenly slams shut.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Hate makes you lonely, Billy," Liz continues, audibly exhausted, when after a few seconds he still does not respond. "If there's one thing I've learned in the last damn years since Lenny died, it's this. Hate is lonely. And even though I know that you probably didn't give a shit about me anyway since you live in the States and Lenny is dead, I'm sorry."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For one insane moment he wavers between the renewed impulse to want to shut her up because he can't take another word and the sudden need to want to cry like a little boy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Since Becca died in his arms, he has not shed a single tear.</p>
<p>Not even during her second funeral.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yes, he could wring Lizzy’s neck, because without her knowledge she manages to get dangerously close to something inside him.</p>
<p>The - at the latest since Becca's death - forever lost and completely useless impulse to want to cry unrestrainedly; something he had worked off ironically since childhood.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But today is a day to celebrate, so neither is an option.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"There is nothing to apologize to me for, Liz," Billy finally says, outwardly still unmoved.</p>
<p>Involuntarily his gaze falls on the cigarette box in her hand and without him having to ask, she hands it to him.</p>
<p>He takes a fag, gives her back the box and lets her light the cigarette with her lighter.</p>
<p>Thankfully he nods, takes a first, long puff.</p>
<p>Billy lets the tobacco burn his lungs and then the smoke slowly escapes from his nostrils.</p>
<p>His eyes wander back to her face, and he feels something infinitely heavy inside him at this moment, perhaps a millimeter slipping.</p>
<p>"Come to the pub," he says, making a spontaneous decision. "I'm sure Mom would be happy to see you again."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once again she shakes her head, lowers her eyelids for a moment.</p>
<p>"I - I can't. I-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Mom always liked you, Liz." He takes another drag, blows the smoke over their heads. "So do I."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She snorts, it sounds incredulous, almost contemptuous.</p>
<p>He can't blame her for that either.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Yes," Billy says calmly. "Just because I acted like an asshole the last time we met doesn't mean I give a shit ."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>A little late for that, maybe.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Story of his life.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She looks up again and her face seems to light up for a blink of an eye.</p>
<p>"I - I don't know. Are you sure Connie really wants to-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Come along." He takes a last puff of his cigarette, then carelessly flicks it to the ground and crushes the stub with his heavy boot. "Mom will be happy. Come on. We toast to the death of this cunt of a father and celebrate. Let's get it on."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A tentative smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. "Okay. Did you relieve yourself earlier?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"All done. The grave is freshly watered and I hope there are lots of fucking weeds growing on it."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When they arrive at the pub, it is still relatively thinly filled, except for the handful of unemployed and the usual obligatory good-for-nothings and drunks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dodgy types, who get rat- arsed already in the early afternoon, in order to bear the self-inflicted meaningless life better - no more job, the old woman, who has spent her life as a punching bag bitching around at home finally unpunished (because man hast lost his physical power over the years), and the dear little children have already left years ago, if they were smart enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mother sits at a table with Judy and three old drinking buddies of his late father, who still seem vaguely familiar to Billly.</p>
<p>So his aunt had actually taken it upon herself to fly all the way from the States - just like him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He goes first, and Lizzy follows him hesitantly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Judy has put on an icy face and stares at her opened beer, while Connie bravely tries to make monosyllabic conversation, apparently still keeping up the damn old charade.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Was a fine guy, your Sam," one of the guys just slurs and slaps his flat hand on Connie’s thigh, presses it briefly.</p>
<p>His mother nods forcedly.</p>
<p>"It wasn't always easy with him, but at least he always made sure you had butter on your bread, didn't he, Connie? He was a damn old warhorse who knew how to get by, yeah.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Above all, he always made sure to give us a good kick in the teeth," Billy said when he arrived at her table, Liz behind him in tow.</p>
<p>Her nervousness literally punches a hole in his back.</p>
<p>"Butter on bread was not a big deal, not least because he always preferred to drink his measly wages and all his black money in some dive bars rather than taking care of his family.”</p>
<p>He looks the miserably wrecked loser in the face one by one. "Now, piss off, mates. This is a private party."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"And you are?", asks one of the remarkably dense drunkards, suddenly noticeably upset.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Quite obviously that you drank your puny brains into the ether ages ago, isn’t it," Billy calmly replies, dripping with contempt. "The name is Butcher. Billy Butcher. And now fuck off. I won't say it a third time."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"So you're Sam's oldest son," says loser number two, checking him out of already fucking glazed eyes. "Bloody big mouth you got there, boy, that’s for sure. But shows not much empathy talkin’ to your poor mother like that on her poor husband's funeral day. You’d better-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Joey", his mother interrupts him, her voice unexpectedly cold and hard.</p>
<p>She glances briefly around. "Thanks for coming here, also to you, Pete, Michael. But now I ask you to leave. You heard my son." She looks up at Billy's face again. "This is a private party from now on."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It's already pitch black when Billy leaves the pub with Liz.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mother and Judy left a few hours ago after his aunt was so wasted that Connie ordered a cab for them both.</p>
<p>It had turned out to be boozy round, as Billy had predicted, and in the end they were all drunk enough so that at some point, the water shot into their eyes and two or three guests complained about the noise level at their table.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"All right, all right," Judy had barked back between two hysterical laughs. "Don't every day die 'n dirty despot and is send back to hell, so you're allowed to be in a good mood again, or what?!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She tossed the next, probably her seventh or eighth shot in one go and then slammed the glass back extra loudly on the table. "Stupid assholes", she said, "Don’t know anything about nothin’, but always fucking mouthing off.”</p>
<p>She turned her head back to those motherfuckers again.</p>
<p>"Besides, getting upset over every fucking little thing is not good for your heart," she shouted across the bar room, far above room volume. "But I could offer you something for that for a song!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Snorting, she turned back to Billy, his mother and Liz. "I'd gut the fuckers like a fat Christmas goose. Hey!" She called for the waiter who was hurrying past her table with a full tray and waving her empty shot glass.</p>
<p>"One more!"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I think that's enough for today, Judy," his mother had said in a surprisingly soft voice and put her hand on Janet's. "Thanks for coming here, Jude. It really means the world to me." Her gaze glided to Liz and on to Billy, caught on his eyes.</p>
<p>"Billy."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"It's over, Mom," he said and it was only at that moment that he realized how much he had been longing all his damn life to be able to say those exact words to her.</p>
<p>To say them to Lenny.</p>
<p>"It's fucking over."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"It fucking is." Once again, Connie looked into her daughter-in-law's eyes. "I'm so glad we met again today, Liz. Thanks again to you for coming."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He saw that the tears, that just filled her eyes, had nothing to do with the alcohol and the exuberant mood.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Thanks for having me here and joining you, Connie." Her voice was so rough Billy thought it would break any moment. "I know I acted like a bitch after Lenny died, and I'm so sorry about that, I -"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Shh, child." His mother grabbed Lizzy's with her other hand, squeezed it. "We've been through this before. We've all made mistakes. But all we have left is the here and now. Thank you all for being with me."</p>
<p>Connie took a deep breath, pulled her hands back.</p>
<p>"And now it's time to go, Judy. After all, tonight I have to prepare for the hangover of my life tomorrow."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"She seemed so released," Liz pulls him out of his alcoholically impregnated thoughts by his side. "For a moment, at the end, she did look almost happy."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Suddenly she stops, holding Billy by his arm.</p>
<p>"Thank you for letting me join you today. It was almost like back then, almost as if we were one," she swallows briefly, " family again. I haven't had this feeling for a long time. Thanks, Billy."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He knows that Lizzy no longer has parents, siblings or other close relatives.</p>
<p>Knows that from before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lenny had been her family, she had emphasized that more than once.</p>
<p>Full of pride and love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shyly she hugs him now, and he returns this hug unusually soft for his circumstances.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Family is overrated", he says, as they separate again. "Always remember that. You are your own family, Lizzy."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>You pull yourself out of the shit by your own hair, single-handedly.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>If life has taught him anything, it's that.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Or maybe we at the widow brother-in-law and sister-in-law club will form one of our own."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her gaze is glassy and yet gets under his skin, unasked for and even less wanted.</p>
<p>Fucking liquor.</p>
<p>Since when can he actually tolerate less than a bloody, cookies-like-drug-dealing boy scout in his first year?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a moment, charged silence spreads between them, then Lizzy takes a step back and breaks the spell, and fortunately the moment is over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Goodbye, Billy." A warm smile plays around her lips and her fingers touch his left cheek perhaps for a second. "Thanks for this evening."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy has to control himself not to automatically take a step backwards as well, to retreat from the feeling that her feathery touch has just abruptly triggered in him.</p>
<p>Completely out of place, unexpected, unasked for and not worthy of either of them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Take care, Liz."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Will do." Her smile becomes broad for a moment, sloppily she salutes him and then turns around on her heel, walks briskly towards the subway station.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He forces himself to look away from her, buries his ice-cold fingers deep in his coat pockets.</p>
<p>But just as Billy also turns away to look for a cab, she suddenly, abruptly whirls around on her heels and comes back determinedly, straight at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Everything alright-" he wants to ask, but by then she has already grabbed him, grabs his neck with her left hand and pulls his head down to her face.</p>
<p>Presses her lips against his.</p>
<p>Hungry, impetuous, starved.</p>
<p>For a moment he is frozen, but then he returns the pressure of his lips on hers, kisses her back involuntarily.</p>
<p>Her tongue pushes into his mouth and Billy lets it happen.</p>
<p>Under the sharp echo of the consumed alcohol, he tastes a sweetness that is unique to her, indefinable, and almost manages to mask the bitter despair of her hasty act.</p>
<p>Her kiss is hard, passionate, demanding.</p>
<p>Desperate.</p>
<p>As desperate as he now kisses her back, as it were, ruthlessly and desperately.</p>
<p>She presses herself against him, rubs her narrow body against his, and for a moment he is seriously tempted.</p>
<p>Tries to give in to it, to the promising prospect that she is just now offering him unasked.</p>
<p>She is the last person Lenny was with until the day of his self-chosen death.</p>
<p>With whom he could, in an indirect, completely twisted way, perhaps one last time, perhaps the illusion, evoke the echo of his closeness.</p>
<p>One of the two few people Billy really had ever loved in his life.</p>
<p>Really and truly.</p>
<p>And Liz, who in this way tries to be close to her husband ‘once again’ by fucking him.</p>
<p>
  <em>He has Lenny's eyes.</em>
</p>
<p>They would both use their desperate act tonight to conjure up the ghosts of their past as well as to keep them at bay.</p>
<p>But then he resists.</p>
<p>Resists the temptation to fuck his brains out of his head with her help this very hour.</p>
<p>For it would be neither fun nor joy they’d share in the heat of rumpled sheets and desperate combat.</p>
<p>But terrible, horrible misery.</p>
<p>And Billy knew that Liz knew that.</p>
<p>They both knew it.</p>
<p>And this knowledge, this cruel common ground, to have failed the most important person in both their lives when it mattered - this knowledge ties them inseparably from now on, for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Stronger than any kinship could ever be, stronger than blood.</p>
<p>For the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Until their dying days.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Billy releases his lips from her mouth, softly, gently.</p>
<p>Just as he loosens the grip of his hands around her neck almost in remorse.</p>
<p>He lets his eyes stay close for a moment, his forehead slowly sinking against hers.</p>
<p>Feels her warm, sweet breath on the tip of his nose and he takes a deep breath.</p>
<p>
  <em>Forgetting.</em>
</p>
<p>Sweet, bloody, treacherous, deceitful forgetting.</p>
<p>Deception.</p>
<p>Not meant for him, in this life.</p>
<p>Never again, never ever.</p>
<p>Slowly he raises his head, kisses her forehead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Goodbye, Liz," he says, looking her in the eyes one last time. "Take care of yourself."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She nods, his own infinite grief reflected in her abysmal gaze, and he feels that she senses it, too.</p>
<p>Knows that in this moment she instinctively knows about it, too.</p>
<p>This invisible bond, woven from guilt and love, that now ties them forever.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Burden and comfort at the same time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You too," she says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Will do."</p>
<p>And with these words, Billy turns and walks away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He never looks back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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